Tag Archives: instagram

Welcome to Mozy’s App Profile, where we introduce new programs seeking to improve the way we live and socialize. This week, Mozy takes a look at ‘Song for Pic,’ a platform that adds randomized music to your existing Instagram photos (and videos soon too).

As recent as February 2013, Instagram hit 100 million active monthly users. The now-Facebook owned app has certainly introduced the online community to talented photographers and artists—as well as brought out the inner photogs in us all—but as of today, Instagram has yet to create a truly monetizable service.

Song for Pic, a new Instagram platform that randomly assigns music to a user’s uploaded photo, might eventually fill that void. While the platform is still in its infancy, the plan is for the music industry to piggyback on Instagram’s coattails to explore a much more instantaneous, and potentially lucrative connection with prospective users.

The inspiration for Song for Pic was about as straight forward as one would think.

“I loved Instagram from the first moment I tried it,” said Ricardo Fonseca, Song for Pic CEO. “But I also felt it was missing an important artistic component: music.”

A few months later, Song for Pic was born.

The platform is extremely easy to use. When a user enters the main site, they’re prompted to enter their Instagram user name and password. Song for Pic then automatically retrieves a photo from the Instagram account, and assigns four random songs. The songs range features classics and/or very well known songs, “Like from Kris Kross to Michael Jackson to Aretha Franklin—just to name a few,” Fonseca said.

A user then has the option to share their new and improved Instagram photo to Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus, and/or Tumblr, so that friends can vote on which of the four songs they think is the most appropriate for the given photo.

But perhaps the recent news of Instagram incorporating video—in an attempt to challenge Vine’s short-lived monopoly—is a prime case of “right place, right time” for Fonseca’s tune-centered platform.

Perhaps more so than photos,”video already has the audio element,” Fonseca said. “The result of mixing video and one random song would most likely have a music video quality, which with the appropriate song, could be quite fun [and hopefully have mainstream appeal].”

Fonseca, who is currently unaware of any other start-up working on a similar platform, realizes that the market could quickly become flooded with competition. That said, the future is still bright for Song for Pic.

“The possibility of instantly buying the song was always a goal in this project,” said Fonseca. “At the very least, Song for Pic will certainly be a new way for people to discover music [...] and a fresh way for the music industry to reach [them].”

In the long history of innovation, there have been some incredible instances of companies pivoting to a different niche. Perhaps the most startling pivot was Nokia, which despite being the leading mobile phone maker from 1998 to 2012, was originally a small-town Finnish paper and rubber manufacturer.

But while technology companies of today might not so drastically change their infrastructure, even one-beat smartphone apps have successfully overhauled their outlook to adjust to growing tech and mobile trends.

Arguably the most notable example of an app successfully pivoting, is Instagram. Instagram was originally conceived as “Burbn,” a check-in, location-based tool. Unlike Foursquare, its main competitor in this space, Burbn enabled users to share filter-enhanced photos. Co-founders Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger quickly realized that users were more intrigued by the photo sharing aspect of Burbn than the check-in function. It was from that insight that Instagram was born. With over 100 million active users, and its historical $1 billion acquisition by Facebook, Systrom and Krieger were wise to pivot.

When Feathr launched in 2012, many people had a similar reaction: I should have thought of that. The app’s original focus was to digitally re-invent the traditional, and archaic business card, while also implementing a social, share function. But co-founder Aidan Augustin decided to point Feathr in a different direction in 2013, repositioning it as an interactive tool for corporate conferences. With Feathr, users are quickly able to access cleanly designed profiles for conference speakers, exhibitors, and other attendees, while also seamlessly connecting via LinkedIn and Twitter. Suffice to say, Feathr has vastly improved its app, and in doing so, could potentially revolutionize the vCard in the process.

Even though Qwiki, which was essentially a “video meets Wikipedia” tool, had been a heralded iPhone app since its inception in 2010, founder Doug Imbruce wasn’t satisfied. Imbruce yearned to compete with video-based social apps, like the Twitter-backed Vine. But instead of implementing Vine’s 6-second, GIF-style approach into his app, the founder went in a slightly different direction. With the new Qwiki, users can create a quick video (or slideshow) sourcing photos from one’s iPhone camera roll, and without any prior editing software knowledge, turn a folder of cute nephew baby pictures into a short video. Users can then share the video with friends, family, and the world (if you really wanted to).